ABSTRACT
The plan to land a man on the Moon was deceptively simple. In order to enter orbit round the Moon the spacecraft had to slow down by firing the service module engine as the astronauts were passing behind the Moon. The first human beings to see the far side of the Moon with the naked eye were the three astronauts (Borman, Lovell and Anders) who took part in the Apollo 8 mission–the first time that a spacecraft carrying humans had been placed in orbit about the Moon. Apollo 8's mission was to fly the command and service modules into orbit round the Moon. Apollo 10 took a lunar module along as well and flew it to within nine miles of the surface. It was decided that Apollo 12 would attempt to land within walking distance of the Surveyor 3 probe which had soft-landed on the Moon on 20 April 1967.
